The History of the Saga up toThe Day before Surgery:)

First off a warning or two ;).

#1 Something's may be graphic in the text, I am trying what happens, this is as much a tool to let others know how I am going as a means to help me cope with this.

#2 I am an Electronics Engineer, Not an ENGLISH TEACHER, so there will be wrongly used words, spelling mistakes and incorrect grammar. I am trying my best, which is hard with all the drugs I am on.

 

The Background:

So in 1994 I had an accident which resulted in me falling in a safety harness. In ~2001 I was in hospital with Kidney pain. they found out at that as I had lost feeling in my bladder the Kidneys were suffering from reflux (the urine was not flowing into the bladder as it was already FULL and I did not realise. This causes damage to the Kidneys. So to stop this damage they put a urethral catheter in.

After a couple of years of Urethral catheter changes, some doctors ram catheters in which in me created a false passage ( a false passage is a second pathway for the catheter to travel down which does not lead to the bladder) in my case the false passage was as long from the point it split from the urethra as it was to the neck of the bladder. So with the problem it took the continence nurses at hospital "A" up to an hour to change each catheter, with a fair amount of pain. So the nurses managed to convince the Urology Dr's to swap to a Supra Pubic Catheter, this is a catheter that goes into the bladder via the abdomen right above the pubic bone.

The Supra Pubic Catheter (SPC) worked well for just under 9 years, then it started to irritate the bladder, I would keep wetting myself (I was wearing matrices between my legs just to keep dry), have massive spasms, sometimes my urine would turn very red (indicating blood) and the poor nurses in the community who were  changing it were having problems, either my bladder would spasm so much they had trouble getting the catheter back in and staying in while they filled the balloon, or I was in so much pain as they tried to remove the old one that they were near the point in their protocol that they had to stop and send me to hospital.

So in March 2012 when the pain during the day be came so strong that I had to stop working I asked my GP to refer me to a Dr "Z" who visits Hospital "D" thinking that anything that needs to be done can be done there and it will all be close for friends and family.

Dr "Z" Recommended to remove my bladder and make an Iliac Conduit for a Urostomy. When he said this I wanted time to consider this surgery, research etc. One or Two of my good friends discussed things with me over Facebook and in real life, It turned out a good friend on Facebook has had this procedure done overseas where they live about 30 years ago and say it was the best thing they had ever had done.

So I went back to Dr "Z" and said with zeal lets do it :). He informed me it could not be done at hospital "D" as they do not have big enough operating theatre rooms, if I need ICU there are none there, it would have to be done privately at a cost of $35K or It could be done at hospital "A", so Dr "Z" sent off a referral for an urgent appointment.

I attended hospital "A" and met with Dr "Y". I explained the situation, he laughed it off and said I needed to intermittent self catheterise, although this would not work if I produced over 7 L of urine in a day (which some days I do) but he still wanted me to do this...... I was after lowering the risk of UTI's not increase them. As I work on construction sites, some of the workers cab bit hit the toilet bowel, some when wiping the back side get a small bit of faecal matter on their fingers and smear it on the wall, the partitions in the portable toilet blocks are not full height.... This was not a good idea.

I went back to Dr "Z" who referred me on to Dr "X". Dr "X" listened to my concerns, and came to the same conclusion as Dr "Z". So Dr "X" referred me back to Hospital "A" but this time to Dr  "W" who apparently has done a few of these procedures in the past. He looked at the test results that Dr "X" had ordered, and said that he did not believe them and that he wanted to repeat them again. I informed Dr "W" that I was nearly out of savings, if things did not happen soon I would have no money, which would mean I would be bankrupt, which would then make me unable to hold a Security Agents, Installers and Consultants license. When I said this he replied that it was not his problem. I told him that this work was my life and that without it I would have not life no happiness so I would kill myself, he replied "That would be unfortunate!!!" I ran from the room back to my van, I punched my seat hard for a few minutes to try and calm down, all I really did was bruise my fists.

I went back to Dr "X" who was more than happy to do the Surgery on a date after my medical insurance would cover it. My Medical insurance said it was a pre existing condition as I had a catheter when I joined on the 23 March 2012. I asked them If I broke an arm while in the pre existing lockout period if they would cover it as I had two arms when I joined ;) they could not answer. We agreed that the surgery would involve the removal of the bladder, prostate and testis, the creation of a Iliac Conduit to drain the urine from the ureters to the outside world (where a pouch would cover it to hold the urine till I empty the bag.

Some months later a date was set for the 10th of April 2013. This would be a day for cleaning out my intestines ready for surgery on the 11th.